Help me learn to love my snorkel

I am very happy to see others use these gimmicky gadgets. There is a thing called wasted time. Do I really have to come back and race again to show you that there is an easier way. The easier way is full stroke swimming. So your basic reasoning seems to be: if Tarzan didn't train that way, it is a waste of time. That's what I thought.

I will be swimming full stroke and keeping it simple. And keeping it really boring.

I will stop short of agreeing with George, but understand his sentiment. I use a kickboard, paddles and a pull buoy in training (no snorkel), but the vast amount is just swimming. The reason? Mostly because I feel awful taking my stroke apart. Drills are useless to me without a coach critiquing them on every length (how many of us get THAT treat?). I kick sometimes with a board, sometimes on my side, sometimes with fins. That part is definitely an asset to racing for me. Everything else, not so much. I love to swim but if there were no meets, I would not be a regular at workout. I heard a quote from Natalie Coughlin early this year that I will now paraphrase," Every time I get in the pool, I try to have a perfect stroke, kick, pushoff. Even in warmups." Junk yardage is not a distance, it is lack of effort to improve.

I am very happy to see others use these gimmicky gadgets. There is a thing called wasted time. Do I really have to come back and race again to show you that there is an easier way. The easier way is full stroke swimming. Rather than just your bald assertions, do you have any reasons these things are bad? When I was in HS and college -- and a much faster kicker than now -- I used a kickboard exclusively. That's just the way almost everyone trained their kick at the time. Nowadays I split about evenly with and without a board. Kicking without a board is better to include hypoxic training (probably a bad idea in your book too, right?) and to better simulate actual race conditions. I use a kickboard if I am doing aerobic/endurance kicking for general leg conditioning, or if I just don't want to have to worry about hypoxic training. I see lots of people who say a kickboard is bad because body position is bad. I think that's bunk. Sure, the body position isn't exactly the same but from the abs down it is probably pretty similar. And in any event, for training the legs, it doesn't matter. The most useless kicking exercise (IMO) is doing dolphin kick on your back while on the surface of the water. That's completely different than doing it underwater, and it also doesn't match anything you do while racing. If you are hung up on body position while using a board, then I would recommend getting a FINIS alignment kickboard and using a FINIS snorkel with it. (And no, I am not a paid FINIS rep.)

Do you really think you are swimming well because you are using a kick board.??? I have heard all this kick stuff before from a few others.

As I said every one can kick all they want. You can use a snorkel if you want. I will not be stretching. I will not be using any devices. I like what I do. Which probably does not mean much to any body. Hey I have not raced since 1998 and may never race again. But I am hankering to get back in the swim. I will not be kicking with a board or without a board and no snorkelling for balance. I will be swimming full stroke and keeping it simple.

While I don't have ADHD in my dry life, I definitely have it in the pool. So I love a healthy mix of kicking (with and without boards), pulling, drilling, full-stroke swimming and the occasional game. The more variety I get, the more I stay mentally engaged. Most importantly, I like coaches that use them all creatively -- and take the time to explain why you're doing them. As such, when I teach, I always try to work this info into the set instructions and I don't introduce a new drill if I can't give my students a good reason for doing it.

I am wondering how any one doing 1000 meters a day can possibly get bored (sometimes 2 X1000m a day). It works out the way I do it to be about 20 to 30 minutes. Thinking about technique, every move I make and helping others. My thousand meters is swum by the clock doing 25s, 50s and 100s And keeping it really boring.

Variety is the spice of life, George.

And that probably works fine for a short workout. But our average workout is over 4,000 so if all of that was straight, full-stroke swimming, I'd be full-on Shining-crazy by the halfway point. And because I can't resist a Simpsons quote ... "Shh! You want to get sued? Now look, boy: if your Dad goes gaga, you just use that... Shin of yours to call me and I'll come a runnin'. But don't be readin' my mind between four and five. That's Willy's time!"